Also tmrw is when Mark Cern's video plus visit to Mike Morhaime is occurring.

The vanilla movement has momentum.

In the meantime, a shitload of the Nostalrius refugees are rolling on a brand new Kronos server on the 27th April (tmrw but euro time). Matey, Doc and myself will be on alliance side so post in here if you're interested in experiencing WoW with community and difficulty (albeit one might acknowledge some of the difficulty could be accurately described as grindy).

It's an interesting message that ultimately means nothing. I wouldn't refer to it as an announcement.

That 'pristine server' sounds nothing like what these people want. Sure it might go some small way towards it, but the game is still very very different from vanilla (or as they seem to have termed it, 'Classic WoW').

I think he said enough to calm down some of the involved people but it's also very likely just a way to get people to back off and eventually forget about it. Now that they've said something people will expect some further discussion or announcement about it months down the line and Blizzard can just use that time for the momentum to die off and have everyone forget about it.

Potentially, and likely. I'm hopeful however that it is just the start of the dialogue.

With Kronos exploding in population to the point of releasing a second server, this isn't going away. Kronos is released by twinstar, a mob that has very blizzlike servers. People now will refer back to this new blue comment and say things like "blizzard, people still want vanilla".

I think the idea of pristine servers is a good idea that is easier to implement, but they should be categorised as in the context of PvP, RP and RPPVP servers and the like and not mentioned in that post as an alternative to vanilla servers because I think that is insulting.

.. Still to talk about something that pisses me off about the whole vanilla movement I hate how they characterise retail to be dog shit. I am really passionate about retail because I enjoy playing it and I enjoy it just the way it is, its like owning a puppy then having someone make fun of you for owning a puppy. I understand not all vanilla fans are wankers but there seems to be so much hate to retail in these posts I often just avoid reading about it all because most of the time they make me want to punch my computer screen. Good luck to the good guys though.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. I could not even comprehend playing a vanilla pally. let along some of the other classes.

Vanilla wow was a product of the time, much like our memories of it. Where we were at with our lives, the fact that for most of us this was the first time we had experienced an MMO, the community that has been built from it; they are all but memories. People need to stop trying to recreate and hold on to what was instead of focusing on what is.

People like the idea more than the actually thing. I loved vanilla wow for what it was, but to go back to spamming Flash of light... no thanks. Spend 3 months leveling a character. No thanks,I have a wife and a child now.

People have been playing the 'actually thing' and have been enjoying it thoroughly. This is the whole point that is trying to be made. There is a significant amount of people who really want to play it. So much so that blizzard is acknowledging this want. I don't think it's just vanilla either, I'm sure there would be a significant amount of people wanting to go back to BC/WoTLK if they have the option.

Yea and power to you for thinking that I salute you and good luck to you guys for getting a vanilla server going I really sincerely freaking do. But vanilla people need to acknowlege that some people actually really like retail and that its heading in the right direction and that we think it is still really fun to play.

Kronos2 launched last night and it was a very stable launch. There were thousands of players and the server capped out quickly.

Checking in this morning and the queue was huge:

This community has grown as a result of blizzard shutting Nostalrius. The amount of people in chat who are experiencing private servers for the first time is astounding. Likes Hydra losing a head, blizzard has inadvertently strengthened our community.

Thousands, that's great. There's how many millions playing the current version ?

True this is one of the challenges that their fight is up against.If there was millions of people wanting vanilla servers blizzard would be prepared to invest the large amount of resources required to make it happen, I mean anyone would invest into something if it they can make a profit, that's like business and stuff. .. I don't want sound like I am ripping on them but dam the vanilla movement seems to be up against it.

Here is my screen shot from my WoD que back when the xpac first hit, and this is for just Frostmourne alone.

Yea Blizzard might of strengthened their cause but is it strong enough yet?

All that video shows is thousands of people standing around in IF because either they have done everything there is to do or they are spamming chat for hours trying to get a 10 man UBRS group together.

Seriously. You hit 60, Spend hours and hours farming UBRS for your tier 0 then raid with your guild. apart from throw in a few BG's here or there that is literally all there is to do.

What's that? you can't make the raid night? oh that's a shame, looks like you'll have to wait for next weeks guild run because you can't PUG a group like you can in WoD. Yes you can still PUG a group but good fucking luck getting 40 competent players. 40. not 10, not 15 not 20, 40. From the one realm only. No inviting people from other servers.

Everyone goes on about how good south shore was. Not it wasn't. It was a bunch of melee running in to their deaths, getting picked off by the ranged with the occasional pally running into to drop a consecration then bubbling to run away. Playing force-mans-back until the guards chased you away. Why it was "so good" was because after getting your Tier 0 there was not content at the time . People were bored. MC wasn't release, there were no BG / AV yet. It was literally the only thing to do. At the time (10 years ago) it felt fresh and new. Once BG's and AV were finally released the south shore skirmishes died off. If it was "so good" then why, once said content was finally released into WoW did the skirmishes cease?

At least now the classes have their different unique play styles and skill rotations and cool downs. Back in vanilla it was basically spam the ability that does the most damage. Don't even get me started on Ret pallys. Activate Seal of Command and go AFK and pray the fucking thing procs.

WoW lost it's way with Cata and MoP (seriously, they turned an April fool's day joke into an actual expansion), they tried to get it back on track with WoD but basically abandoned ship to throw everything at Legion.

But in all honesty I don't get it in regards to the legacy servers. Vanilla was amazing at release because it was fresh, it was new to a lot of people and it flowed on from WC3. But from someone who was 20 when it was released and is now 31, married with a child and a full time job, there is no fucking way in the world that I am going to dedicate months and months and months (took me 4 months to get my pally to 60 when frostmourne opened, would take me a year now) to level a character to 60.I like that I don't have to invest that much time to level multiple characters and go through content I've done a dozen times. I like that if I miss our guilds raid because life gets in the way I can easily find a group. I like that, because of cross realm queuing, I don't have to wait an hour for a BG to pop. I like being able to log in now and there are weekly challenges and dailies to do. I like that my character doesn't have 100 useless spells. I like that I don't have to spend months leveling a character so I can experience the bulk of the content.

Only thing from vanilla I miss are casters actually having to watch their mana pools, and the skills trees that allowed you to create a relatively custom character. I love it from what it was when it was but fuck going back.They are great memories because they are memories.

I think the clips were recorded during the shutdown period, so everyone was standing around. Fair comment about your life mate, I appreciate most of that except for the kid part. My gaming time is severely impacted too. I'll be there in Legion too.

Original WoW they wanted 500k subs. They got 2million. There are now too many people playing on private servers; established servers are releasing second or third options and a whole bunch of amateur servers are popping up with terrible scripting just for their 10 seconds of fame.

There is a business case here. It's not as grand as 5Million subs, but isn't that what blizz is all about these days; smaller games, faster development times? This is a smaller task. Timing wise I think they'll come out 6-12 months from Legion release.